Nailbitingly exciting

Rating: 10/10 (16 May 2007)

The post doomsday genre is not exactly new so there is a limitation as to what you can achieve in terms of originality. Granted, Boyle lifted a lot from Dawn of the Dead/ Day of the Dead, The Omega Man and most importantly from the BBC low budget series of Day of the Trifyds. The debt to the latter is the most obvious one where you can see that Boyle really almost took complete scenes. But Boyle achieved to create something that's better than all the films he uses as raw material. As opposed to Romero's works there is not an awful lot of gore although the film is very violent. But the fact that all the killings are done by hand rather than through firearms makes it seem even more real and immediate. The film is absolutely atmospheric and frightening, well paced and well directed. And that is also something Romero never managed. So essentially 28 days later is finally fulfilling the promise of a great post doomsday film- which Romero never managed to achieve because of his slow pacing and unreal violence and the BBC did not quite manage because of budgetary restraints.